The present invention relates to data mining, and more specifically, to data mining shape based data.
There are many data analysis applications where shapes based data may provide important information, such as data associated with design specifications, layouts, plans, routes, traces or maps. Data analysis can be enhanced by depicting data as shapes for the analysis or including layout information in the analysis, such as critical path analysis or diagnostics data analysis for yield learning. Currently, for diagnostics data analysis, tests are performed on devices, such as semiconductor integrated circuit wafer tests, to detect possible errors in the devices. Some of these tests are diagnosable and produce diagnostic data that relate to possible errors in the devices. Diagnostic data are typically stored in a database and reviewed in an attempt to identify possible causes or similarities in the detected errors. The diagnostic results may include large amounts of associated shape based layout data. As a result of the large quantity of data produced, reviewing the diagnostic data to detect the presence of systematic errors or defects in the devices is a difficult and time consuming task.